The Evil Mistletoe
by Sierra Charm
Summary: Ginny's feeling lonely for the holidays until a sprig of evil floating mistletoe decides to solve her problems...just not the way she expected. One shot.


A/N: I've been writing this fic off and on for about a year, so don't think I've been neglecting my other fics just to get this one posted for the holidays. It's been done for a while and I just wanted to get it up and spread some holiday cheer…and whatnot…. Mostly I want people to know I'm not dead, so…here's proof…I still exist.

There are a lot of fics involving mistletoe, especially around the holidays, so I apologize for the cliché, but…I think I've added a little spin to the mistletoe, which you'll probably enjoy if you have the same odd sense of humor I do.

It's not the best thing I've ever written, but it's cute. I like it. I had a lot of fun with it, so just ignore the passive voice and occasional split infinitive and go with it.

Cheers for the holidays!

The Evil Mistletoe

It was Christmas Eve, and Ginny wasn't ready.

"Where did the time go?" she moaned, burying her head in her arms. Long strands of fiery red hair cascaded around her, blocking out the candlelight. The area around her was a complete mess. Pieces of wrapping paper and ribbon were strewn everywhere, burying a pile of wrapped presents and inhibiting her progress on the half-wrapped ones. A bag at her feet was laden with Christmas cards, and on the table stood another stack of cards yet to be addressed and sent.

"Why, why, why?" Ginny demanded, punctuating each word with the banging of her head against her forearms. (She would have banged her head against the tabletop, but she imagined that would hurt a bit, and she didn't need to lose more neurons than she already had over this 'Christmas' business.)

"Oh, it's all right, mum," she said, in a mocking tone, "_I'll _handle the Christmas cards this year. Don't you worry about a thing! _Idiot_!" she reprimanded herself. "What possessed me to do this...?" she muttered, grabbing a card and signing it messily. "Stupid, stupid, _stupid_," she continued, grabbing an envelope and scribbling an address on it before tossing it into the bag. "The post office is going to have _fun_ with this," she said, sarcastically.

"What's that?"

Ginny glanced over her shoulder to see Harry standing in the middle of the common room, holding an apple, of all things.

"I've just got a million cards to send, that's all," she informed him, scribbling away at another card and dropping it into the bag.

"You want some help?"

Ginny sighed. "No, I'm okay. I'm nearly done."

"You sure? You look kind of...stressed."

"Yes, well," Ginny said, slightly annoyed, "not _everyone_ can spend the first few days of holiday sitting on their bum playing chess."

She shot a dirty look across the common room at her brother, who was indeed sitting on his bum playing chess, and by the looks of things winning quite brutally.

Harry grinned. "Well, you know, as long as he's not setting Dungbombs off..."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Don't give him any ideas."

"Too late. He went to Zonko's again today."

Ginny groaned. "_Great_. Can't _wait_ to see what he's spent all his money on _this_ year. Although you know, I'm surprised Fred and George don't get more offended...he spends an _awful_ lot of money at Zonko's..."

"Well, it would probably help if Fred and George stopped sending him all that free stuff," Harry pointed out.

"True," Ginny agreed. "I have to get back to work, though. I need to get down to the post office before it closes."

"How do you plan to get that down to the village all by yourself?" Harry asked.

"Carry it," Ginny replied, looking at Harry rather oddly.

"Well...yeah, but it looks kind of heavy...are you sure you're going to be able to carry it all by yourself?"

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "They're just cards, Harry. They're not that heavy. Besides," she added, turning back to the envelope she'd been about to address, "there's a weightlessness spell on this bag."

"Oh," Harry said, looking rather disappointed. "Well...good luck then. And...Happy Christmas, Ginny," he managed, after hesitating a moment.

"Merry Christmas, Harry," Ginny said, before turning around in her chair and scribbling away at the envelope. She sensed Harry standing behind her for a moment before he shuffled across the common room to watch Ron play chess.

Things were...odd...with Harry. Ginny had gotten over her crush on him several years ago (as Harry was perfectly aware), but this year Harry had become a hung up on _her_, which was just...several years too late, really. It wasn't that Ginny didn't like Harry; she did, just not that way. He was a fantastic friend, but...that's all he was to her. Many times she'd tried to rekindle whatever it was inside her that had been so attracted to him, but the attraction wouldn't come--which was a pity, really, as it was the holidays, and Ginny was really very tired of being single.

If she thought going out with Harry would help her at all, she probably would have, but she had too much love and respect for him as a friend to do that to him. She didn't want to get involved in a relationship where she wasn't as serious about the guy as he was about her. (Those always went bad.) Really, when Ginny thought about it, all she wanted was a snogging partner, and that was about it.

Michael Corner was single. And a shallow git. And an evil ex-boyfriend. But he was a good kisser, and the kind of person who you could just snog for a while and nothing would come of it, and when it came right down to it that was all Ginny wanted.

That and a million dollars and a mansion and a Firebolt and a knight in shining armor. But you couldn't have everything, so at the moment she was willing to settle for a decent snog session.

As she thought this, she addressed the last card, and then pulled her traveling cloak off the back of the chair she was sitting in and fastened it around her neck before slinging the bag of cards over her shoulder and leaving the common room.

The castle was fabulously decorated, as usual, and the Great Hall, with its twelve Christmas trees, was as splendid as Ginny could ever remember. Even the grounds were decorated, with fairy lights, wreaths, and sprigs of floating mistletoe (which were things of purest evil, in Ginny's opinion--she'd already been stuck under the demon sprigs twice, once with Harry, and once with Ron, which had just been weird). Really, in many ways it reminded her of the decorations from the Yule Ball several years ago--although of course they weren't _that_ fabulous.

Whoever had conceived the notion of floating mistletoe, however, should have been blasted out of a cannon. Not only were the sprigs large, ugly, and heavily perfumed, but they were enchanted so that, if _any_ two people got stuck under them, the sprig would not go away until those two people kissed. Sometimes the sprigs did not mind if it was just a peck on the cheek--which was what Ron had done to make the thing go away when he'd been stuck under it with Ginny--but other times the sprigs floated around for hours waiting for the appropriate kind of kiss to occur. And the more you resisted, the worse the sprigs were. They really were damned evil inventions.

Professor Dumbledore had probably come up with them.

He was always doing things like that nowadays. Maybe he had some wild scheme to try and bring the students together by attacking them with ostentatious floating plants, or maybe he was just going mad; with Professor Dumbledore, sometimes it was hard to tell.

At any rate, the mistletoe _did_ distract Ginny's mind for a bit while she lugged the bag of Christmas cards down to Hogsmeade. The bag wasn't heavy, but it was unwieldy, and in all honesty once Ginny got to the post office she needed help to get it through the door.

The postage on one hundred and ninety-six Christmas cards to various inland and overseas locations was _ridiculous_. Not that wizards even _had_ postage, technically speaking, but one owl could only carry so much, and Ginny spent the last of her Galleons and Sickles at the post office paying owl fees. This was extremely disappointing, as she'd been hoping to pick up a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks and warm herself up a bit before trudging back to Hogwarts in the snow.

However, three Knuts could not buy a butterbeer, and as there were no more carriages left in Hogsmeade to deliver her to the front doors of the school, she was stuck walking through the snow. She hummed and cursed and thought boring things as she made her way back to the school, and on the way lost one of her earrings and had to spend five painstaking minutes looking for it in the snow, nearly hysterical that she'd lost her birthday gift from Bill. She stuck the earring back in (which was rather painful, as Ginny was horrible at putting her earrings in without a mirror and kept poking herself with the sharp end of the contraption) and made it all the way up to the front doors and past the Great Hall without further incident.

However, at the top of the first flight of stairs, three bad things happened, almost at once. First, she realized she'd lost her earring again and stooped down to search for it. When that proved unsuccessful, she straightened up and found herself face-to-face with Draco Malfoy, who was on his way up from dinner and sneering at her rather nastily. As if those things weren't bad enough, Ginny caught the all-too-familiar mistletoe scent she'd been avoiding for most of the holidays, and looked up in horror to discover that a giant sprig of mistletoe had settled over hers and Malfoy's heads.

Malfoy followed her gaze and looked properly horrified when he realized what Ginny was staring at.

"Move aside, Weasley," he snapped, glaring suspiciously at the mistletoe as he pushed her aside to walk up the stairs.

The mistletoe promptly split in two and, while one sprig remained over Ginny's head, the other was following Malfoy cheerfully down the hallway. Occasionally Malfoy would reach up and attempt to hit it away, but the mistletoe was quite nimble and managed to hop out of the way every time.

"Oh, _great_," muttered Ginny, who had absolutely no desire to have a stinking green plant follow her around for the rest of her life. However, it was either that or kiss _Malfoy_, and at the moment a smelly decaying plant sounded better. She trudged back to the common room, feeling absolutely miserable. Ron took no time at all noticing the sprig floating merrily about her head, releasing perfume in such great whiffs that it made Ginny gag, and he questioned her about it immediately.

"Ginny, where did you get _that_?" Ron demanded, just as Marcella Pilfrip, a girl in Ginny's year, exclaimed, "Oh, _gods_, Ginny, I hope you're not going to_ sleep _with that thing!"

At first, Ginny seriously thought that Marcella was indicating that Ginny would have to sleep with Malfoy, and she got such a sickened look on her face that Ron sprang up from his chair and leapt over the chess board (knocking several irate pieces over on the way), running over to Ginny to give her a full-out inspection. Ginny sighed impatiently as Ron did odd things like lift up her hair and inspect behind her ears. Then, after determining that his little sister was in full working order, Ron squared himself up, looked Ginny in the eye, and said, "All right. Who is it?"

Ginny nearly burst out laughing, as Ron rather looked like Ginny had just told him she was pregnant and he was prepared to find out the name of the father--but really when she thought about it there were very few things humorous about her potentially having to kiss Malfoy. Instead she just shrugged and swallowed before choking out, "Malfoy," very quietly.

"WHAT?" Ron exploded, whipping out his wand. "All right, that's it! Ginny, _duck_, I'm going to get rid of that stupid thing!"

"Ron, _no_!" Ginny cried, having already seen the effect spells had on the mistletoe. A girl in her Herbology class had been wretched last week because she'd ended up under a piece of mistletoe with her (very recent) ex-boyfriend. She made her best friend fire several powerful spells at the thing in the hopes of terminating it, but to no avail. The spells simply ricocheted off of the mistletoe and hit several other girls in class, sending two of them to the hospital wing.

Ginny practically threw herself on the floor in an attempt to escape Ron's spell--and a good thing it was, too, as the mistletoe followed her to the ground (evil little thing that it was) and Ron's spell was absorbed harmlessly by the back of the Fat Lady's portrait.

"Ginny!" Ron cried indignantly. "I wouldn't have hit _you_!"

"I know that, idiot!" Ginny replied from the floor. "But spells don't _work _on the mistletoe, they just bounce off!"

"Oh," Ron said. "Well...nicely done, then, I suppose."

Ginny rolled her eyes and rose, with no assistance from her brother.

By now most of the common room was staring at them, and Ginny suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable--almost as though she were standing in the middle of the room naked--and looked at all of the curious students with an odd little half-smile plastered on her face. Ginny suspected everyone in the room was wondering who had the other half of her mistletoe sprig, and she felt in no mood to tell them.

She was saved, however, by Hermione, who entered the common room at that moment (laden with bags, as usual), looked around for a split second, and then grabbed Ginny's hand and dragged her upstairs to the girls' dormitories without saying a word. Some of the girls rushed after them in breathless agony, but Hermione ignored them and led Ginny straight through the Seventh Year dormitory to the Head Girl's room, where she promptly locked the door behind her and tossed her bags on the bed.

Ginny plopped down on the bed, shoving the bags over to make room for herself. She laid down and sighed, staring at Hermione's unimpressive ceiling.

"You don't look like you're having a very good day," Hermione said, dragging one of the bags toward her and pulling out a thick, brand-new book entitled _The Above Average User's Book of Unnecessarily Complicated Charms, Hexes, and Potions_ by W. A. Flabbergast. Hermione was addicted to W. A. Flabbergast, who was the award-winning author of _The Above Average User's Book of Killer Socks, Teapots, and Cardboard Boxes_ and _Lick it or Leave it? An Adventurer's Guide to Muggle and Magical Food Around the World_.

He had also written several unsuccessful romantic novels, which were hidden underneath Hermione's mattress--both of which were very bad, very trite, and very erotic. The titles were fun, though; _Coitus and Cauliflower _and _Shagging and Chivalry_. Ginny didn't know _where_ Hermione had found them, but they were always good for a laugh--although since reading the former, neither Ginny nor Hermione had been able to eat cauliflower with a straight face. This was unfortunate, as Ginny's mom was rather fond of cauliflower and could not understand Ginny's sudden hysterics in reference to it. Ginny supposed this was partly a good thing; it suggested that Mrs. Weasley had never read or heard of _Coitus and Cauliflower_. But still. Ginny would never be able to look at a vegetable patch the same way again.

At the moment, however, Ginny's problems extended beyond cauliflower. "I hate mistletoe," she informed Hermione miserably.

"Most of us do," Hermione agreed, shelving several more books before shoving the second bag (which Ginny suspected was full of Christmas presents) into her closet. She plopped down on the bed next to Ginny and stretched out, also staring at the ceiling. "So," she said.

"So?" Ginny repeated.

"Is it as bad as I think it is?" Hermione asked, staring at the mistletoe, which was unleashing great stinking waves of pink perfume.

"Worse," Ginny said miserably.

"What, it's not Snape, is it?" Hermione joked, and Ginny shrieked in laughter.

"No, it's Filch!" Ginny cried, and Hermione laughed as well.

"No--no--even better--Mrs. Norris!"

"Or--ooh---the Bloody Baron!" Ginny shouted, and Hermione and Ginny exploded into giggles, wondering if it was anatomically possible to kiss a ghost.

"Maybe it's...Sir Cadogan!" Hermione tried again after she regained her composure.

"Or maybe it's Dobby!"

"Or it could be Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret!" Hermione giggled, thinking mostly of the ferret and not of the person (though really there wasn't much difference between the two). Ginny, however, sobered at this comment, and Hermione, immediately recognizing the significance of Ginny's silence, rolled over and stared at her with wide eyes. "Honestly, Gin?" Hermione whispered.

Ginny, feeling positively miserable again, turned over and buried her face in a pillow.

"Oh, _Ginny_," Hermione said, hugging Ginny awkwardly.

"What the hell am I supposed to do, Hermione?" Ginny demanded, her voice very muffled.

"Live in perfumed anguish for the rest of your life?" Hermione suggested, glaring up at the scent-spewing sprig.

Ginny laughed dryly.

"I dunno, Gin...if he comes up and tries to kiss you, just...hit him!"

Ginny moaned. "This stupid thing's _never_ going to go away!"

Hermione had a moment of furious thought before suggesting, "Why don't you take it to Professor Dumbledore? Surely _he_ knows how to get rid of these awful things."

Ginny sat up. The Headmaster undoubtedly had other things to worry about besides the romantic affairs of the students, but Ginny felt that now was a time of desperation. And anyway, she'd have to talk to McGonagall if she wanted to see Dumbledore at this time on a Saturday, and odds were that McGonagall knew how to take the stupid mistletoe spell off as well.

"Amen to that," Ginny said, sliding off the bed. "I might as well go now."

"Do you want me to go with you?"

Ginny shook her head. "I'll let you know how it goes, though."

"All right. Good luck with that then," Hermione said, sliding off the bed.

"See you later, Hermione," Ginny said, leaving the Head Girl's room.

There were several sixth years waiting to pounce on her when she left the dormitory, but she ignored them and made her way briskly down the stairs and out of the common room. She attracted quite a bit of attention as she walked down the hallways, and her cheeks were burning by the time she got to Professor McGonagall's office.

"Er...Professor?" Ginny said hesitantly, knocking lightly on McGonagall's door. Professor McGonagall was leaning over a bit of parchment, and when she looked up to see Ginny, she got an extremely irritated look on her face.

"Oh, that's _it_!" Professor McGonagall cried, throwing down her quill. "I've _had_ it with students coming to me telling me to take the mistletoe off. I don't know how, Miss Weasley, and if you see anyone else, you may tell them that as well!"

"But Professor--I wanted to ask Professor Dumbledore if--"

"Professor Dumbledore is _busy_, Miss Weasley. I can assure you that the headmaster has greater things to worry about than enchanted mistletoe. However, he has assured me that by the end of the holiday season, all of the mistletoe will be gone, so you needn't worry--just so long as you fix up whatever business you have with _that_ piece of mistletoe before then."

"_What_?" Ginny shrieked. "You mean I still have to _kiss_ somebody because of this thing?"

"Miss Weasley, I'm sure that as long as it's not a ghost, you are perfectly capable of accomplishing that. However--_ridiculous_--the mistletoe might be,"--and she said this in a tone that very much indicated that she, too, thought the mistletoe extremely ridiculous--"it is something that you must figure out for yourself. That will be all, Miss Weasley."

"But Professor--"

"That will be _all_, Miss Weasley."

Ginny sighed, and, with a sagging heart, turned around to trudge back to the common room. On the way, she passed the entrance to Dumbledore's office, where Draco Malfoy was standing shouting nonsense words, but to no avail.

"It's no use," Ginny informed him, rather miserably, and Malfoy turned around and glared at her.

"Don't speak to me, Weasley. I assure you I can handle it without any of _your_ help," he said coldly before turning back to the statue.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Well, I've just been to see Professor McGonagall, and she informed me that Professor Dumbledore won't be taking the mistletoe away until after holidays."

Malfoy considered for a moment before turning back around. "Well as long as it's going to disappear--"

"It's _not_ going to disappear, Malfoy."

"Weasley, you just--"

"I know what I said, Malfoy. But this thing isn't going to disappear if _we_ don't get rid of it first."

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Weasley, and I have classes with _Longbottom_. If there's a way to put a spell _on_ it, there's a way to take the spell _off_ it, and Dumbledore knows how, and I'm _going_ to have this removed before the end of the day. And if I don't--"

"What, are you going to get your _daddy_ to take it off for you?" Ginny snorted. "_Honestly_, Malfoy, you need to learn to take care of things yourself."

Malfoy glared at Ginny fiercely. "_This_," he said, indicating the mistletoe, "is not your problem."

Ginny barked out a laugh. "Not my problem? In case you hadn't noticed, Malfoy, it _is_ my problem. And I don't intend to be walking around with this _thing _above my head for the rest of my life, either, so we might as well just fix it!"

Malfoy gaped at her. "Are you honestlysuggesting that we--that _I_--"

"Oh, for heaven's _sake_, Malfoy, it's not as though there's another solution!"

"Like hell there isn't!" Malfoy yelled, whirling around to shout some more nonsense at the statue. Fortunately for Ginny, this didn't last long, as Professor Flitwick rounded the corner at that moment and asked Malfoy if he wouldn't mind keeping it down a bit. Personally, Ginny was a bit sorry it hadn't been Professor McGonagall or Hagrid--or at least someone who would have taken points from Slytherin because of Malfoy's stupidity.

"_Look_, Malfoy," Ginny hissed after Professor Flitwick had gone. "Professor McGonagall said that as long as we got this all sorted out before the end of holidays it would disappear. But if we _don't, _then we could very well be walking around with this above our heads for the rest of our lives."

"Maybe _you_ will be walking around like this for the rest of your life, but _I_--"

"Oh, come off it, Malfoy! Just listen to me for a minute. Look, how many people even know this mistletoe links me to you?"

"It had better be no one," Malfoy said darkly.

"Right. Well, if we wait until the end of holidays we're going to be the only two idiots with this still over our heads, and I don't fancy that too much. So if we decide to get it all sorted _after_ holidays, then everybody is going to think we've gone off and snogged somewhere, even if all we really did was have Professor Dumbledore sort it out. But if we take care of it now, nobodyhas to know any of this happened."

Malfoy considered for a moment. "That's sick, Weasley," he said, and Ginny just stared at him, as he was obviously still thinking. "You haven't told anyone, have you?" he asked suspiciously, and Ginny sighed.

"I told two people, but they both think I'm getting it sorted with Professor Dumbledore right now. They won't know the difference."

"Oh, this is _disgusting_," Malfoy sneered.

"Malfoy, if you think I _want_ to kiss a great, bloated, stupid, pansy-assed git like you--"

"_Pansy-assed_?"

"Yes, pansy-assed," Ginny snapped. "All I want is to get out from under this stupid mistletoe, and you're being pansy-assed about it."

Malfoy spluttered a string of incoherent words that sounded vaguely like curses, and then glared at Ginny, his cheeks rather red. "Well--well--_fine_," he said finally. "Let's find a sodding broom closet or something, then, and get it over with."

They did. They crunched themselves in with mops and brooms (the non-racing kind) and cleaning supplies and both lit their wands and glared at each other for a moment, each not trusting the other in the dark.

"Well then," Ginny said. "I guess we'd better get on with it."

The mistletoe seemed to agree, and began spouting such copious amounts of perfume that Ginny feared someone would walk by the broom closet, smell it, and discover them.

Draco seemed to be on this same line of thought, because he said, "Guess so," in a rather strangled manner, and, summoning his courage, leaned over and kissed Ginny's cheek.

Ginny swallowed and looked above her, praying that the mistletoe would vanish, but it was just sitting there, above her head, spinning around in glee and emitting great pink puffs of perfume. Never before in her life had she had such a great urge to utterly mutilate something. She looked back at Malfoy, who appeared just as annoyed as Ginny with the sodding stupid mistletoe.

"What now?" Malfoy demanded.

"I guess...we'll have to..." Ginny trailed off, feeling a bit ill at the prospect. This whole affair was properly humiliating. Hell--she'd even take _Ron_ under the mistletoe again instead of Malfoy! Well...maybe not if she actually had to _kiss_ Ron, as opposed to a peck on the cheek, but...oh...bullocks, that train of thought wasn't helping any. She looked up at Malfoy. He was standing there with a sick sort of expression equal to how Ginny felt.

With that same sick expression on his face, Malfoy leaned over slowly and pecked Ginny very quickly on the lips before pulling away.

The mistletoe didn't seem satisfied with this either, and Malfoy frowned and leaned over and pecked her again, this time a bit longer, but not by much. The mistletoe continued to merrily emit the disgusting pink perfume. At this point, Malfoy was so enraged by the sight of the mistletoe that he could no longer control his anger.

"Oh, bloody _hell_!" he yelled, and did the last thing Ginny would have expected, which was grab her and kiss her.

This was not a short, quick peck on the lips, and it threw Ginny off. Her eyes flew wide open instead of fluttering shut like they normally did, and the experience was so odd that she couldn't stand it for more than a few seconds. The moment her eyes closed, however, Malfoy let go, and they flew open again, seeking out the mistletoe--which, she hoped, would be conspicuously absent.

No such luck.

Ginny gaped at the mistletoe, and then at Malfoy, and then at the mistletoe again. "What...in the bleeding..." Ginny said, halfheartedly, and then stared at Malfoy with her mouth half open.

"I don't believe it," Malfoy said, and, for the first time Ginny could recall, he sounded completely sincere.

"What are we supposed to do, then? _Shag_?" Ginny demanded, and Malfoy backed up, knocking into a stack of Magical Mess Remover and nearly knocking it over. "I was just kidding," Ginny affirmed, but Malfoy looked no less horrified.

"I can't do this much longer, Weasley. One more go, and if we don't get rid of this stupid thing, I give up."

Ginny nodded in agreement. This was the weirdest experience she'd ever had, and she wasn't quite enjoying it. Strangely enough, though, she wasn't entirely...not enjoying it, either. It wasn't _completely_ unpleasant, anyway...at least Malfoy's breath didn't smell (although the perfume really did), and he wasn't a bad kisser...but at the same time...it was Malfoy, and it was still a bit...well...gross. But not _entirely_ gross. Which was...weird.

These were the thoughts processing in Ginny's mind as Malfoy's lips descended on hers for the fourth time. They both stood there, for a moment, hoping the disgusting perfume smell would go away and that this was all they'd have to do. When the perfume and the mistletoe didn't disappear, however, Ginny and Malfoy edged a bit closer, and Ginny reluctantly began to actually kiss him, instead of just letting his lips sit awkwardly on hers. This apparently spurned something on Malfoy's end, as he responded, even going so far as to set his hand lightly on her waist.

The perfume persisted, and Ginny and Malfoy went for more drastic action. Ginny's arms moved their way up by Malfoy's neck and Malfoy's other hand went nearer Ginny's waist. When that bit of physical contact didn't do the trick, they moved a bit closer.

It appeared that wasn't going to work , either.

Ginny sighed impatiently and did the only thing she could think of--put her hand on the back of Malfoy's head and force the kiss to be deeper than she had ever intended. This was the point where Malfoy seemed to lose all sense of the situation, and he began kissing her like she was his girlfriend or a brilliant snog partner or perhaps some combination of the above, and Ginny felt that she had no choice but to prove to him that Gryffindors were just as good at snogging as Slytherins were.

It appeared that both of them were so caught up in this bit of unspoken inter-house rivalry that they didn't notice when the mistletoe disappeared, taking the disgusting perfume smell with it.

Ginny had never known inter-house rivalry to be quite so...interesting before. But then, most inter-house rivalry involved Quidditch and the House Cups, not hands and heat and lips and tongues. There were times when Ginny even forgot who she was kissing--and then when she did remember, it had almost stopped mattering, because she'd been aching for a good snog just like this, with someone who knew perfectly what they were doing and wouldn't care if they never spoke to her again. And--well--well--_damn_, Malfoy was a good kisser. It wasn't fair, really, as he was such an extraordinary git in real life. But this, right now, here--well--it was--it was--

It was _nice_.

She knew it shouldn't be. You shouldn't be able to enjoy snog sessions with people you loathed. It shouldn't work without that mutual physical attraction. Except--except that it did.

Oh, bloody hell, who cared? Screw should and shouldn't, Ginny was enjoying herself.

When it ended, it ended. Ginny and Draco looked at each other for a moment, a bit disheveled. "Well then," Ginny said, slightly breathless. "I suppose--I s'pose--I'll--I'll be going now."

Draco nodded, and Ginny nodded back.

"Happy--Happy Christmas and everything, then," she said, gathering up her wand, which she'd dropped at some point.

"Er--same to you," Draco said awkwardly, and Ginny nodded one last time and left.

Well. This certainly was the most interesting Christmas Eve Ginny had had in a while....

A/N: Hee hee hee. That was fun. Don't you think it was fun? Yes, no, maybe so? Leave me a review and then I'll know. (Oh, God, I'm rhyming.) Anyway…feedback is greatly appreciated. And Happy Holidays to you. 


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